New contracts to buy existing homes ticked up slightly in November for the first time since May, as buyers continued to move a little bit more slowly after the mid-year jump in mortgage rates.

Pending sales of existing homes rose 0.2% in November, and were down 1.6% from November of 2012, the National Association of Realtors reported. The statistic reflects deals where buyers have signed a contract but not yet closed on the purchase.

Existing home sales for the year will be around 5.1 million, about 10% higher than last year and the best performance in seven years, and should stay at about that level in 2014, the association projected. The group estimated that the median existing-home price for all of 2013 will be close to $197,300, up nearly 12% from 2012, and will rise between 5% and 5.5% in 2014.

"The softness in pending sales in recent months has been due in part to the jump in mortgage rates that first occurred in May,'' Barclays economist Cooper Hawes said. "This effect has been diminishing, however, and we would expect that pending home sales will gradually resume their upward trend.''

New home sales and housing starts have each strengthened this fall, JPMorgan Chase economist Daniel Silver said. New home sales in November and October have been their strongest since before the 2008 financial crisis, the Census Burea reported last week.

"Many housing indicators — including pending home sales and the related existing home sales data — weakened following the increase in rates around the middle of the year,'' Silver said. ``But several housing indicators have improved recently and the very modest increase in pending home sales in November is a tentative sign that activity is stabilizing, or perhaps even picking up, in the market for existing homes.''